I know this will shock you as much as it did me (sarcasm alert!), but the airlines received dismal marks in the latest University of Michigan customer satisfaction survey. Bottoming out the list are merger candidates United and US Airways--oh good, if they do merge, they can consolidate that bottom position. US Air also tied with Continental on diving the deepest into the customer dissatisfaction pool since last year, while Southwest once again gets the highest marks.
While it does quote the lead researcher as saying, "There's no other industry anywhere that has so many basic mishaps in terms of not delivering the basics," it also points the blame finger at passengers like me who buy on price alone, then whine about the lack of customer service. OK, point taken, but still...